Authors Note 1: we were supposed to spend this three day weekend in Jiuzhaigou National Park, which is supposed to be one of China’s (and the world’s) most visually stunning natural landscapes. Our flight was cancelled the day before, though, so we decided to go to Shanghai. Author’s Note 2: We made this trip in March 2014. I actually wrote the whole blog in March also… I’ve just been slow to upload and add the pictures. At this point… we’ve actually now visited Jiuzhaigou too. 🙂 Friday 星期五…

I’m SUPER optimistic about open data and civic tech in China. For the last five years I worked for the City of Houston. Among the projects I worked on, I was part of the city/community team that launched Houston’s open data and open innovation hackathon initiatives. I worked with really awesome people and had transformative leaders in Mayor Annise Parker, Council Member Ed Gonzalez, and CFO Kelly Dowe. Not everything worked out well, but we were able to ask why we did things, to experiment, and to empower people to make a difference. These programs allowed us to extend the ability to…